Council approves pass-through funding for teen birth control

1of3District 6 San Antonio City Councilman Greg Brockhouse (left) speaks Thursday September 21, 2017 to Health Director Colleen Bridger (facing away) about no cost birth control for San Antonio teens. The item carried with the city council.Photo: John Davenport, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

2of3Reiana Fernandez,19, speaks Thursday September 21, 2017 about teen pregnancy at a city council meeting. Fernandez spoke in support of a proposal to provide contraception for teens in San Antonio.Photo: John Davenport, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

The City Council voted overwhelmingly Thursday to continue a teen pregnancy prevention program through September 2019 that provides both birth control and behavioral and mental health counseling for teen parents.

In 2013, the city’s Metropolitan Health District submitted six proposals — for diabetes prevention, children’s oral health services, HIV and syphilis prevention, neighborhood health promotion, breastfeeding promotion and teen pregnancy prevention — totaling more than $43 million in federal funding that passes through the state to local jurisdictions.

The program was set to expire at the end of this year, but the Texas Health and Human Services Commission has requested an extension that would continue the program until Sept. 30, 2019, according to city documents.

The item was set for a quick, rubber-stamp approval, but Councilman Greg Brockhouse requested that it be debated. He suggested that the city should reprogram the $325,000 that is set aside to provide teenagers with access — with parental consent — to long-term, reversible contraceptive methods, such as intrauterine devices, known as IUDs.

Council gadfly Jack M. Finger and defeated District 9 council candidate Patrick Von Dohlen, a conservative Christian who previously opposed the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance, spoke against the funding. Finger called it a “teen promiscuity promotion program.” Von Dohlen called it “offensive” and suggested that the council was going against its recently adopted charter of compassion by providing long-term birth control to teenagers.

The council approved the contract, which is paid for by the state with federal dollars, 9-1. Brockhouse dissented. Councilman Rey Saldaña was absent.

There was a lengthy exchange between Brockhouse and Metro Health Director Colleen Bridger. He asked whether the funds had to be spent specifically on birth control. She said the funds were to be used on the comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention program — the funding doesn’t come with strings to particular methods of preventing pregnancy.

“It does not come with rules about how you have to spend it to reduce teen pregnancy. So we could spend it any number of ways. We’re spending it the way evidence-based programming says works — to make sure you have education, that you have mental health, that you have access to contraceptives and that you have education that helps parents communicate with their teens, and we’re doing all of those items.”

Bridger noted that only 25 percent of the funding for teen pregnancy prevention is spent on contraceptives. She also told the council that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been studying teen pregnancy for decades and recommends a multipronged approach to reducing the teen pregnancy rate.

Though teen pregnancy rates have dropped in San Antonio, they remain among the highest in the state, Bridger said. In 2014, San Antonio’s birth rate for teens between 15 and 19 was 37.4 per 1,000. Similar figures collected by council district show that in 2010, that rate was the highest in District 5, with 100.7, and the lowest in District 8, with 20.4. By 2016, the rate in District 5 had dropped by almost 45 percent to 55.6. In District 8, it dropped to 9.5, a 53.4 percent reduction.

It was Brockhouse’s District 6 that had the most precipitous decrease, from 56.5 to 24.7 — a 56.3 percent reduction.

Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran thanked the several women who testified on behalf of the funding — including a teenager who offered a first-hand glimpse into stories of her friends who are in need of such services. The pregnancy prevention, the councilwoman said, would help break long-standing cycles of economic segregation, among other things, and allow for better outcomes for young girls “who deserve a chance at a better life.”

Councilman Manny Pelaez argued that the U.S. Constitution allows for such efforts, ensuring that government look after the “general welfare” of its citizens.

And Councilwoman Ana Sandoval pointed to the myriad setbacks a teenage mother faces, underscoring the importance of preventing pregnancy until later in life.

“A pregnant teenage mom is really less likely to have access to prenatal care. … So this is going to put her at risk for poor health outcomes,” she said. Those include low birth weight, premature births and infant mortality, the councilwoman said.

“She’s going to be less likely to complete middle school, high school,” Sandoval said. “She’s less likely to go to college or trade school, less likely to have a career, less likely to be part of the competitive workforce.”

Referencing Von Dohlen’s remarks about compassion, Sandoval said that’s exactly what the city is doing.

“This is about breaking the cycle of poverty and giving people opportunities,” she said. “And it is absolutely compassionate for us to offer this option and remove those barriers for the women who need it and to give opportunities to our youth.”

Just before the vote, Mayor Ron Nirenberg reminded the council and audience that the local body had debated this same issue in the past.

To see a full-screen illustration of a teen-friendly clinic visit, click here

“Unfortunately, in political circles, this is, has been and will be one of the most discussed topics in American life,” he said. “But as we have seen already, this council, this city will make decisions based on evidence, based on data.”

After 10 years covering City Hall for the San Antonio Express-News, Baugh moved into the environment beat in February 2019.

A native of the Alamo City, Baugh was hired as a suburban-cities reporter at his hometown newspaper in 2006.

He began his newspaper career at the Denton Record-Chronicle while working on a master's degree in journalism at the University of North Texas and later covered Texas A&M University for The Eagle in College Station. He's covered various facets of government and politics ever since.

Baugh has previously written about public housing, county government and transportation for the Express-News.